Why are houses so expensive in America?

Question

Why are houses so expensive in America? 
 Is there an area where rents are cheap? I am a foreigner, I want a place where I will not see racism. It also needs to be safe.

MrOracle · Accepted Answer

Houses are very expensive in the US, and while a lot of that is supply & demand/market forces (lots of people want to live in the nicer areas and/or near places where you can make high salaries, so the demand for housing outstrips the supply), but it's also because most "newer" homes (built in the last 50 years) are larger and have lots of luxuries (that most people don't even realize are luxuries), all of which have driven up costs.

There are places where you can get housing for much less, BUT generally your earnings potential - assuming your job is local - is also likely to be far less. If you can work remotely, where you can earn a high salary from a big company based in a major city, but actually live in a more rural or more economically depressed area of the country, then you can live very well for not a lot.

Just understand that everything is going to be a trade-off. Most less expensive areas are either going to be more rural (generally, with much poorer services, such as Internet) or they're going to be in economically depressed cities with higher crime and lower earnings potential. Also, generally, the more politically left-leaning a city or area is, the more likely you're going to experience crime, and the more likely the laws are going to favor the criminals over the victims. New Jersey, and the NYC area, are both extremely left-leaning, and despite being very expensive, also have high crime, lots of racism, and laws that make defending yourself or your property very risky.

For the last 3 weeks, as an example, several dozen major national stores, including major ones like Walmart, Target, Walgreens, CVS, Rite-Aid, Costco, Aldi, etc. have announced that they are closing stores in a number of cities. All of those cities are places that have been solidly controlled by Democrats (the "left") for at least 50 years, yet are considered to be places with the most serious racism. These cities all had major riots after the George Floyd incident, all supported the "defunding of police", most of them voted in District Attorneys that refused to prosecute "low-level crimes" because that would tend to affect black people, and all of these cities experienced huge increases of crime as a result. All of those cities have since changed their mind about defunding the police - but they can't hire enough officers because no one wants to work there, and they can't get back the officers who they laid off or who took early retirement as part of the "defunding".

Meanwhile, these big stores had to deal with this:

https://www.youtube.com/embed/kK3b8hXd8oc https://www.youtube.com/embed/NTV2S2OtrfM

And now, Portland, Seattle, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Minneapolis, Chicago, and a dozen other major cities - the very same cities who have been releasing criminals without charging them over and over again, have now seen every major retailer pull out of those cities, leaving those areas without services. This will make things much harder for those who live there and can't afford to move, and will almost certainly lead to even more crime.

These cities have seen violence and murder greatly rise, sometimes double or triple from just 3 years ago, as these new far-left policies have been put in place.

My point here is that you need to make sure you research where you are going to live, and make sure you ask around and get MANY opinions, because not everyone will tell you the truth - especially not the people who want your rent money.

abc3643 · Accepted Answer

1. From what nation are you coming?
2. Are you immigrating to the US or coming because of a visa such as for college/university or for a job?
3. In what area of the US are you planning on living?

Worrying why houses are expensive is not as important as answering these questions to help you find affordable housing in the US.

Anonymous · Accepted Answer

The median house price was $125,000 in 2015 and $200,000 in 2020 and it's $380,000 now. There's no sign of the bubble bursting because there are 4 million more people needing housing than there are available houses of any price. That means there is almost 0% rental vacancy, so rents are higher than they've ever been in every city and town in the U. S. There's even a shortage of houses at $30 million and up. People have huge amounts of their wealth tied up in their houses now but they can't sell because where would they live? It's a lose-lose situation unless you bought rental property 10 years ago.

Agape93 · Accepted Answer

Capitalism, simply put. They do whatever they can get away with to make more money. But nowhere is perfectly safe and free of racism. But the safest ones are Vermont, maine and new Hampshire.

richardcory · Answer

There are inexpensive places to live in the US but they usually are far from any good jobs. Suburbs of some of the smaller cities may be OK, and some of those cities are OK places to live. For example I have family near Toledo and its a pretty nice place. Near big cities things are expensive

exitseven · Answer

Like everything else it is a matter of supply and demand. This is especially true near cities that employ lots of people. They want to be near where they work.

I agree that home prices are insane but it is still a good investment. I bought my house 25 years ago ant it is worth ten times what I paid for it

Anonymous · Answer

Over time, population increases have resulted in less available land throughout the country. There is no shortage, but land is generally more expensive to buy than it once was. The increase in land costs is directly related to the rise in average home prices

LiamJHayden · Answer

A lot of it is over-regulation.

jimmy2 · Answer

It a housing bubble

Why are houses so expensive in America?

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